Re: User oriented release notes

[karderio <karderio gmail com>]

Hi :o)

On Mon, 2006-09-11 at 12:57 +0200, Quim Gil wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-09-10 at 22:28 +0200, Claus Schwarm wrote:
> > Apple formulates for ordinary users because it has products for
> > ordinary users. We don't.
> 
> This is why we need a common understanding of what are our targeted
> audiences. Now we haven't: some think the release notes should be
> understood by grandma, some say they are mainly for developers, many
> think something else. A tale starting like this can't have a happy end.
> "Common understanding" means that is shared at least by the release
> team, the marketing team and the board.
> 
> Just for the record, I agree with you release notes are not intended to
> end users. This doesn't mean we can't have impressive release notes,
> though.

Might I suggest slightly categorised release notes, that tend to a few
different "types" of visitors". Say start with an overview, that in the
know users could skip, continue with new features and go on to the
technical stuff, finishing with a link to the press release, say. That
way knowledgeable users can skip the overview, and people who are not
interested in the technical side can stop reading when it gets too
complicated for them.

As I probably made clear earlier, the current notes are clearly not
intended for end users. That they are not catered for at the time of a
release seems a shame to me. I think it would be very interesting to
create a sort of "event" around a release, to attract new devotees.
Indeed such a thing already exists, with press articles, the
announcement on wgo etc. (ignoring those who even have parties as they
are already quite devote enough :) I think it would be a great shame not
to profit from the enthusiasm of those visiting the site as an effect of
the release (from a news site, say) to promote our "latest and
greatest".

Murray claims a GNOME release to be "the major thing that gets people to
our site", if that is true, and I greatly suspect it is it would seem a
shame not to try to make the most of the whole spectrum of visitors - so
many potential users.

If the notes are not for the end user, perhaps we should provide a
section along the lines "discover our latest offering" for them, I'm
note sure why this should be separate from the notes though.

Perhaps something to consider may be that managers and other decision
makers can be even more lost than grandmas :o) I'm going out on a limb
here, I may be completely wrong - Dilbert has never failed me yet
however :o)

This talk about the release notes has me wondering if wgo is aimed at
end users at all, should we just have a link to the Ubuntu website for
example ? (That's a mix of joke, sarcasm and curiosity about what people
will answer :)

Love, Karderio.